16 February 2011

Writer's Brain

See... what happens when you immerse yourself into editing so deeply that you forget life, is you start to snuff it up...

We (the Burrow) talked about having a guest writer for the week of Valentine's day and my name was listed... Since I was coordinating the guest writer, I figured that was WHY. In REALITY, I was supposed to post about writing last week and TODAY was the guest romance writer... which never crossed my mind, because you know... once Valentine's Day is OVER, I am onto discount chocolate and WAY OVER romance.

So today, I suppose it is down to me to talk about something writerly {sheesh, when Leanne asked me, I totally still thought it was Tuesday!  THAT is how clueless I was.}, but I am flying by the seat of my pantslessness, so work with me...


A Writerly Resource

First, I want to share with you a new writer's resource.  Imagine going to Google and searching for 'writing contract'... you get a whole bunch of stuff about WRITING A CONTRACT and very few of them have a darned thing to do with a contract between a writer and a publisher. What a hassle, yeah?  And there are probably TONS of good articles and blogs on the topic, but finding them through the morass is nearly impossible.

Well this groovy guy named Mike Fleming, was watching some writers on Twitter and he SAW all these fabulous resources that had a page life of about 45 seconds and thought... :a shame, that." (okay, so maybe I'm putting words in his mouth)... but he saw that Elizabeth the fabulous (you know Elizabeth, yeah?) was collecting these... so the two got to talking... see MIKE is an IT guy... he knows how to create... A SEARCH ENGINE!!! (you heard me... just for writers)

So if you want a little history, here is Elizabeth's version and here is Mike's version.  But then go look for cool stuff!


And since I'm being Helpful and all (to hide the fact that I am apparently flighty), here are a couple other FABULOUS blogs that have helped me with this or that point...

HERE is a thorough list of publishing and writing resources from YA author Nicola Morgan.

HERE is the poop on the HOOK (the bane of our existence, yes?) from Shannon Whitney.

HERE is a fabulous post on synopsis writing from Raquel Byrnes.

HERE are a bunch of query resources (from Elizabeth again--she really is handy for one-stop shopping if you are lazy like I can be...)

And finally, if you HAVE a book, HERE is how to plan a BLOGTOUR from L. Diane Wolfe.


So there... late... chaotic... but hopefully helpful. (I'm going to go eat some crow now)

8 comments:

Jan Morrison said...

being lost in my own little dream of late I have no idea what you were SUPPOSED to do but as I am anti-adulthood anyway - this looks wonderful. Thanks...

Anonymous said...

A writing search engine is a wonderful idea! And thanks for all these links :)

ViolaNut said...

How do you cough up useful stuff on the spur of the moment when I can barely get mine done on time even if I start them a week early? I'm jealous. ;-)

Hart Johnson said...

Jan, anti-adulthood works for me. I'm tired of being a grown up and would like to be taken care of again (by somebody against who I can rebel with all that righteous indignation of a teen)

kanga-thank you!

Leanne-I've been keeping a database for a while... I didn't specifically have a plan of it pulling me out of hot water, but it worked...

LTM said...

no worries! I do that whole "lost in editing" thing all the time... now, for instance. But these are great links, and I'm glad to hear you're making progress! ((hugs)) :o)

Raquel Byrnes said...

Wow! Thanks for the resources in those links and for the mention too! I'm going to check out the other sites. :)

Mike Fleming said...

Thanks for mentioning the WKB.

As you can imagine I always enjoy reading blog posts about the WKB but, I must say, yours was the most entertaining!

And the "groovy guy" bit is funny on the surface but it's even funnier since the WKB was written in the Groovy programming language. ;-)

Anyway, thanks again!

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

Can't believe I missed this post! Thanks so much for the mention, Hart, and for being helpful with your links!